From The Inside Out
by Tsuki Doriimaa
Summary: After a pirticuraly harsh mission, stumbling into a safe housing, one of the guys has second thoughts on the War, the points of it, his past, and his life... (I suck at summaries!)


~ From The Inside Out ~  
  
By: Anime Redneck  
  
10-12-03  
  
Disclaimer: STOP IT! Damn man I don't own the Guys! Stop bloodin' askin' already! I also don't bloody well own, "Fields of Innocence" by Evanescence either! _ heh dolts.  
  
"~Lyrics~"  
  
~ ^.^ ~ * ~ ^.^ ~  
  
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Walking in the door, feet hitting gray matted carpeting, bag being thrown to land on the bed unceremoniously while the door slammed shut behind the figure, not caring if anyone heard and complained or not.  
  
Fighting off fatigue's grasping hands while shuffling towards the medium sized bed, trying to kick off the mud sodden boots while approaching and attempting to keep from falling on his ass while doing it - the figure sighed heavily finally reaching the semi warm bed; a bed which might be able to give some form of comfort he was not able to receive anywhere else... anywhere he would let be given to him...  
  
Dull thumps echoed throughout the silent room as the heavy accessories hit the floor without care, mud flaking every which way. Why was he doing this again? He wondered to himself with another sigh as he leaned his tired body over to pull the soaked socks off his cold and numbing feet. He was freezing. His whole body trembling with Old Man Winter's stickly hands' touches from walking miles in the blinding snow to reach his less then Heaven sent housing.  
  
Turning to shuffling things around in his bag, looking for a clean change of clothing, hopefully something that would keep him warmer then silk in the freezing days, he wondered what the point of it all was anymore. Had there ever been a point to begin with? Was there ever one in War? Both sides seemed to think they had a point to make, something to gain from fighting... But did they every stop to think about the people fighting the damned things? Did they every stop to wonder what the soldiers thought about the wars in which they fought? Risked their lives in?  
  
It seemed truly pointless now, his mind chimed, the lines cross and blur after so much time fighting. It's hard to tell which side wants what, which side was right... If even a side were 'right' to being with. Finding appropriate clothing, forcing his aching and numb body from the bed to move to the bathroom, he wondered if anyone was ever truly 'right' in wars like this one.  
  
How does one tell if what their fighting for is right or not? Your side could very well think it proper and just, that for which your fighting for... While the other side thinks it wrong and futile, thinks that what their fighting for is right. Are we ever really correct though?  
  
Was one little dispute so much worth engaging in a full-scale war for? Was thinking someone else incorrect in their beliefs so wrong that talking about it was pushed aside for blowing the others away? For killing thousands before anyone saw that this wasn't right? Was it so hard to try and fight for what you believed in with words, that you had to pull out the guns, bombs and missiles?  
  
It just didn't make sense.  
  
Warm water cascaded over his head, matting dark chocolate hair to a tanned, pale forehead, rinsing dirt and grim from it, the heated rivets of liquid bring his bodies temputure back to normal as he stood still, actually enjoying the feel of waters caress'.  
  
They had been fighting this damn war for two bloody years now. OZ, Romafeller, The Alliance, White Fang... No one fucking knew who was right anymore. He sure the hell didn't! Why was he still fighting then? Because of his orders? The commands given to him to dictate which actions he would perform, where he would go and who would die... only because they had gotten in his way.  
  
"The sad part is", he muttered darkly, "that I do not know what I am even fighting for anymore."  
  
In the beginning, when Doctor J had approached him inquiring if he wanted to help the Colonies be free, to help his people and have a purpose in life... he had jumped at the chance. What did he have to loose? He had no family, none that he could remember; had no friends, the ones he did recall had all died in the damned war. So yes, he joined the good (slightly crazed looking) Doctor and trained to become a soldier the likes no one had ever seen before.  
  
And a soldier he became: The Perfect Soldier... a name often called to him by his mentor, fellow pilots and enemies alike.  
  
In the beginning, he was fighting for the Colonies freedom, the chance to do things for themselves without having to consult the Earth or other governments for permission before acting. The freedom to be seen as a freestanding people - not ones chained down by rules and regulations... like a dog on a leash.  
  
The Alliance was his enemy. They were the ones that had to be done without. To be gotten rid of... And he did his job well. Then, OZ crept up on stage, quickly followed by another group called Romafeller. White Fang hadn't started fighting for some scrap of something until the next year.  
  
The Alliance was gone; the other three remained. Three forces fighting for seeming the same thing... Or nothing at all... It was hard to tell these days... He had long forgotten why he was fighting, what he was fighting for, who was right... The lines just seemed to have blurred and crossed... almost right on top one another. No one knew who was 'right' anymore. He wasn't sure anyone but he and his comrades cared. The lines now, were merely invisible to him... He couldn't see them. They weren't there... He was only acting on his orders.  
  
Orders...  
  
For he, the World could to go to Hell and take Doctor J's Orders with them! The damn things were why he was in this mess - not discounting his own agreeing to fight when there was a real cause to.  
  
It had been so long... It was like, he wasn't even aware of what his body was doing anymore. His body was on autopilot while his mind was tucked away in some dark corner of his mind, just sitting there, detachedly watching as his hands moved the controls, observing as MS's were blown up, destroyed, people died... by his hands... yet not his hands... He wasn't really doing it... he never was until after the fighting... after he had pushed his way to the forefront, seen what he had done and fled without word to hide.  
  
He was not The Perfect Soldier. He was Human... somewhere in there he was... It was not his hands, not really, that moved those controls in battle, not his hands that reached out, punching buttons and switching switches that sent hundreds to their graves during each mission...  
  
No. He wasn't doing that... He was tucked away somewhere in his mind, just watching. He couldn't stop it. Couldn't stop the Soldier that Doctor J had formed to block his Humanity away, to force him to fight when he chose not to... It was only after... after when the battles were over, when all the Gundams were collected in space, staring, that he was able to fight his way free of the Soldiers caged control... would look at what was done, feel pain slicing through his heart... Then, would he flee... Run from those he trusted with his life... Run from the reality that he (regardless of how) had killed people.  
  
He never wanted to kill... Hadn't known honestly what he was getting into when he agreed to the training.  
  
Dying.  
  
He had wanted to so many times.  
  
He tried. A bitter laugh escaped heat flushed lips. Oh how he had tried! As cowardly as some would claim it to be - even Winner! He had tried to end his life, his suffering no one but he could see, could understand. It seemed however, that the Soldier within him was programmed (his face twisted into a snarl at the thought) to kick in and operate without his consent to save his life every time something threatened his wasted existence.  
  
This is why Maxwell teased him nonstop about being the "Invincible Perfect Soldier"... because the Soldier wouldn't let him die. Not until his final mission was complete. Self destructing Wing didn't even work. Of course... that must had been Fate, he decided... because he was subliminally told to self-destruct... it was an unsaid order. There was only one way not to give up his Gundam, and that was to destroy it... regardless if his life went with it. It wasn't worth that much anyways. He was expendable.  
  
Climbing out of the shower, clean and feeling somewhat like human again, the Oriental youth dried himself off, wrapping the towel around his waist for the time being and stared into the mirror. His mind trying to recall his life before the fighting... before the killing... the harsh training... He hadn't had much of a life, he knew... thought he knew... but it was a life...  
  
"~I still remember the world... from the eyes of a child...~" his voice was low, barely a whisper, floating in the steam filled room, soft and deep, rough with pain. "~Slowly those feelings... were clouded by what I know now...~" Flashes of kids running, giggling in the happiness only ones living on the streets could seem to find. Flashes of a young girl, dark violet hair, bright brown eyes and a pretty smile kicking a can penetrated his mind... mixing and tangling with memories of war. Memories of Deathscythe getting fired upon his back, of Quatre's scream of anguish as a bullet tore through his shoulder... Trowa's sad emerald eyes as he peered into his deep blue ones in a moment of consciousness after self-destructing.   
  
Cold eyes stared back at him. "~Where has my heart gone?~" Holding no emotions. So different from when he and Sosashii ran along the streets of L1, evading the patrols, playing pranks. "~An uneven trade for the real world...~" She had been his saving grace in those days. She was only ten, he a mere lad of four. He didn't know of War. Didn't know what was going on around him. Sosashii, his mind recalled with some difficulty, always avoided his questions about people when they wouldn't get up, when they wouldn't move after shouting or sleeping... She shielded him from what she knew was out there.  
  
"~Ohh I... I want to go back to believing in everything... and knowing nothing at all..~" Kami blessed her soul when he was six, and damned his in return. The Alliance was an unforgiving force to reckon with back in those times. They had raided the abandoned building a group of kids and they had used to sleep in... Sosashii was killed protecting him... a week later he was picked up by Doctor J... and Hell on the Colonies began...  
  
He knew, remembered as he tried drying his untamable hair, that while his life with Doctor J was pure Hell... there were some light spots in it that held close to his heart, warming him when reality and despair set in.  
  
"~I still remember the sun...~" It was a year and five months ago on a sunny Colony day on L3, he had been sent on a mission to destroy a MS production base. He'd finished early that day, running through a park he collapsed to the ground, little chortles escaping him as he stared up at the colony sky. "~...always warm on my back...~" A little girl had wondered up to him with her dog, had smiled brightly, her innocent blue eyes shimmering in joy as she handed him a flower and saying she was walking her dog. He remembered smiling at her, even laughing a little as her dog, Mary had been the name, jumped up licking his face.  
  
And then...  
  
Strong hands griped the countertop in a crushing hold, the wood splintering under the stress. And then night had fallen in the colony. He had went back to the base, a mile or so away from it and pushed the button... The button that would send it all to Hell, destroying everything. And it had worked... it had worked too damned well... That's what he had thought as the pictures of Mary and Janice flew through his mind, the same time one of the MS lined up by the fence had fallen and hit another, sending it falling, tumbling and crashing into a housing complex near the base...  
  
Silent tears slipped away from Prussian eyes unnoticed. Later... walking among the ruble left franticly, heart beating in his chest... he had found Mary's cold body lying under one large bolder. He remembered... so clearly... using all his strength, flower still clutched in one hand, to lift the damn chunk of concrete off the dog... picking it up as if the most precious thing in the worlds, while thinking, if he found Mary, there was no hope for Janice to be alive...  
  
"~Somehow it seems colder now...~" He had failed that mission, in his mind... he had also been retrained for caring about the loss of life, a life of someone he had just met... of anyone at all... Caring wasn't needed in a Soldier... So he didn't care anymore after that...  
  
He didn't care... "~Where has my heart gone?~" That's what the others saw. Only, what they didn't see, he knew - would always know and keep secret - was that every life lost... was slowly and surly killing him inside... How much more did he have to go through? How many more people would die by his Soldier's hand, or the others, before the people starting these damnedable wars would come to understand it was pointless?? How many!?  
  
More tears slipped down cooling caramel cheeks as the dark youth bent to pull on his clean pants and shirt, unnoticed. Standing straight once more, he looked back in the mirror, murmuring, "~Trapped in the eyes of a stranger...~" Those weren't his eyes. He didn't know who they belonged to anymore. They looked the right color... they had the correct slant upwards, the right lashes... But that wasn't him... His friends: Barton, Maxwell, Chang, Winner... the people he held closest to his heart, yet the furthest away... Didn't fully know him; didn't understand him...  
  
He couldn't blame them... He didn't even know himself anymore. And he wondered, when exactly, it was that he became lost? Janice had asked him that a year and five months ago; if he was lost... He remembered replying that he had always been lost. Now however... he wasn't so sure that was the truth back then... Perhaps... perhaps back then he wasn't lost... He had a purpose and a mission in life, he knew what he was fighting for... It was just merely an answer the came out for her question... But now, looking deeply into the eyes masquerading as his own, he knew that he was truly lost.  
  
Much more of this senseless fighting and he would be lost forever. Even Trowa's kind caring, would not be able to bring him back. Maxwell's pestering jokes and teasing smiles, would not be able to get a played reaction out of him. Winner's comforting conversations would no longer be able to drawn even the slightest of his attention... and Chang's offers to spar would fall on completely deaf ears...  
  
Any more of this damn fighting... and there would be nothing left of the person known as Heero Yuy...  
  
There would only be Doctor J's Perfect Soldier left.  
  
"~Ohh I... I want to go back to believing in everything...~"  
  
Whispering to himself, the last of a song he knew not where it came from; mayhap from his soul? Heero stumbled into the hotel's bedroom, crawling into the bed and pulling the covers up to his chin, hoping to keep the warmth in... Maybe, if he was lucky, when sleep claimed him, he wouldn't wake up... wouldn't have to fight anymore... Maybe... if he was lucky...  
  
But Heero Yuy never believed in luck...  
  
.  
  
~oOo~ * ~oOo~ * ~oOo~ * ~oOo~ * ~oOo~  
  
'  
  
heh Well... Whatcha think guys? My friend and I think it came out good. Admittedly, I was working on GWSS7b at the time.. took a break to fold laundry.. and was listening to my mp3s when that song came on. I've got bunches of Evanescence songs, but I hadn't thought I'd heard that one 'til tonight... Yet when it came on it just sort of hit me *blam!* ...'Cold night. Tired, of everything. Heero looking into a mirror'... and this is what came out! heh nearly eight pages. Not bad considering everything else that's a OS-SF usually comes out to be like 15-30. heh   
  
As is. It's complete. I had thought to have it as a OS-SF... but since originally writing it, I've found other Evanescence songs that I can use for follow ups, which will be posted after this one. Same slot and what not even if their supposed to be sequels.. Just sequel chapters I guess. ^_^ I've got the next one started... and the third semi-planned.  
  
Hope ya liked! Please let me know whatcha think about it!! I'll get the next out (hopefully) soon! Let me know what y'all think on that. Thanks!   
  
Keep it kickin'!   
  
~ Anime Redneck  
  
The Certifiable Songfic Queen   
  
Warai no Megami 


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